Via our friends at Juxtapoz Latin America, Brooklyn based Matt Leines recently opened a solo exhibition, Hyperbolic, at Beginnings in Brooklyn. After living in Philadelphia for a few years, the artist moved to New York and settled into a rhythm that was both fresh and cheerful, or as the gallery notes: "Those who follow (Leines') work may have noticed a shift in the last few years, somebody flipped a switch in the artist’s brain–or maybe spun a dial–and all sorts of things began to happen: visible spectrum increasing, palette spinning out, subjects becoming more universal and less referential.

You learn a lot in this art world, and I was still under the assumption that using tape was not the most sturdy way to put together an installation. Brooklyn-based Rebecca Ward isn't afraid of a little tape, so much so that she is creating some fantastic installation and sculptural works with the material. Ward will open a new show, cow tipping (yep, that's the name), at London's Ronchini Gallery this April 12, 2013. Cow tipping.

One of our favorite painters that we have learned about over the past year is Romanian artist Dan Voinea, who mixes both a classical realist style with an almost performance like character connstruction. Voinea just opened a solo show, A Momentary Rise of Reason, at Beers.Lambert Contemporary in London. As the gallery notes, " Yet while technically realistic and anatomically correctly proportioned, the works are characterized as much by their apparent lack of realism: their fantastical tendencies, collapsing or nondescript environments and preference for magic realist narratives. "

We have written about artist Kazuki Takamatsu on the site before, but seeing the work in person at the Scope Fair in Miami, it was some of our favorite pieces we have seen in quite some time. He creates stunning images of what might best be described as semi-erotic, childish Lolita girls in a dreamlike 3-dimensional fantasy haze.

A few things to look forward to with news of both an exhibition and film showing of Takashi Murakami. First, Murakami's film Jellyfish Eyes will have its world premiere at LACMA on April 8, 2013. Second, Murakami will have an exhibition at Los Angeles gallery Blum & Poe opening on April 13, 2013. Add 1 + 2 and you got yourself a reason to be in Los Angeles at the beginning of April.

“For all its squalor and despair, the laundromat has held a curiously elevated status in the global mind. Things happen in laundromats. People get hurt. People hide. People see God. People fall in love. People go nuts. People make plans. Or so TV and film have led us to believe for the last 40 years. Snorri Sturluson is certainly no exception to the laundromat’s allure. When he moved to New York City in 2001 he was smitten with their charm. It was, Sturluson said, as if everything he’d learned about America over the years had contracted in a brilliant epiphany.